


ain’t no rest for the wicked

by 8611



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hipsters, Brooklyn, F/F, F/M, Hipsters, Indie Music, M/M, New York City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8611/pseuds/8611
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Sam live in Brooklyn. One draws comics, the other works in a bike shop, and neither of them particularly expect an indie band made up of angels to happen (hipster!AU).</p>
            </blockquote>





	ain’t no rest for the wicked

**Author's Note:**

> I promise that the title is from [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKtsdZs9LJo), not _that_ particular episode. Also, while we’re on the subject of music: considering this is hipstertastic, it of course comes with [a playlist](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKtsdZs9LJo&list=PLmKp7RDiKJT-G-ajn2oKL6ba_l6pGB26v&index=1). 
> 
> For the sake of this story/the changed timeline, Castiel pulled an Anna in this ‘verse. (I have a whole bit of headcanon about them falling together and then going to find their graces together as college-age types, road tripping around in Cas’ little Civic hatchback.) Also, Sam and Jess? Deffo went to Cooper Union, because they’re hot shit like that. 
> 
> For fun/visuals: [hipster Winchesters](http://atomiczebra.tumblr.com/image/75526553945) and [a couple of wayward hipster angels](http://atomiczebra.tumblr.com/image/75823373287). 
> 
> And finally, a note about the pairings if you’re new to my fic: I don’t do relationship angst. Just generally assume that everyone is totally down with open relationships.

This is a story of Dean Winchester. It might not be _the_ story, and it’s certainly not the only one, but it is a story. It starts a few times: it starts the first time he takes a breath, when Mary and John are there, and it is a true beginning. It starts when he is six (mom’s not coming home), and ten (keep Sammy safe), and fifteen (her name was Ellie), and eighteen (here are the keys to the car), it starts each time his father gives him a new responsibility like he’s doling out stars for good behavior. It starts when he’s 22 and suddenly, for the first time in his life, Sam isn’t right there, next to him. 

It starts when he’s 23 and moves into the walk-up in Bushwick. Sam’s done with freshman year and needs a place to live anyway, so why not? Bobby’s just over a few bodies of water in Rutherford, John’s never going to put down roots ever again in his life, and something aches in him when he thinks of Sam.

Four, maybe five, years from now, the neighborhood will be trendy as hell, but when Sam and Dean find the apartment it’s dirt cheap and the front buzzer doesn’t work and the radiators make a noise like a dying spirit. It’s ok though, because it’s got high windows and more sunlight than they know what to strictly do with. 

They make it theirs. They swap out the plastic fronted fridge for an old school one that Dean can get magnets for, and he steals Sam’s sketches and puts them up on it and Sam rolls his eyes, but Dean doesn’t miss his quick smile. 

Dean sands down the floors, for something to do, to keep his hands busy, gets rid of the awful paint over the original floorboards. Sam paints one wall of the living room-slash-kitchen, some intricate mural with giant hands and fall-bare trees, and it’s kind of weird, but it’s _them_. 

They find an ancient, over-sized dining table and take it apart just to get it through the door, and Sam dubs it the Frankentable when they’re struggling to get it back together. Dean just laughs and pegs one of the screws at Sam’s head. 

On weekends, late at night, when Sam isn’t in the studio slaving away on projects, they do jobs here and there. Ghosts, mostly. Man, but New York is _full_ of vengeful spirits. They’ve got the timetable for the ferry to Staten Island, even all those odd in between hours, memorized half a year in, and Dean swears he spends most of his nights burning bodies there or in Queens. 

The story starts when he opens his eyes one morning, in his room, in his apartment, and realizes that he’s grounded to a stationary place for the first time since he was six. 

\---

Dean is bone tired. He’s been up for over 24 hours, has lost feeling in a few toes that he suspects are at least sprained, and really wants his bed. Specifically, he wants to flop face-first into it and then not move for at least eight hours. Sam has to practically drag him up the steps from the Subway, guiding him down Wyckoff and looking slightly apologetic at the world at large after Dean nearly runs over a small woman and her tiny dog. 

“Is this what art school taught you?” Dean yawns. “How to _always_ be awake?”

Dean’s a hunter, used to running on little to no sleep, and yet Sam is like straight up Terminator about this shit. 

“Sleeping is highly frowned upon at art school,” Sam says solemnly. 

Chuck’s sitting out on his front stoop writing when they pass by his building. Dean doesn’t particularly want to stop -- he’s bone tired, loaded down with gear, and wants a shower to wash the stink of burnt bone off of his body -- but, of course, this means that Sam _does_ stop.

“Hey guys. How was the --” He looks them up and down, guessing based on the smoke clinging to them, “-- ghost?”

“Fairly standard issue,” Sam says.

“Cool,” Chuck says, nodding a bit. “Also, I wanted to talk to you about these new pages --”

“Nope,” Dean says. “I want to go to _bed_.”

“This issue is due at the end of the week,” Sam says.

“I’m going home,” Dean says.

He stalks off, not waiting for Sam to reply. He’s probably doing some glaring. Whatever. At the moment, Dean has like, negative fucks to give. 

Aside from a few people getting to work early, the building is blissfully quiet. No one’s in the hallway to bother him, and when he rolls open the door to their apartment Jess is nowhere to be seen, presumably ditched back to her own place. He can get some sleep, finally. 

Dean only gets as far as the couch, shedding gear and clothes as he does, before he faceplants into the cushions and zonks the fuck out.

\---

His phone is ringing.

He groans, pulling a pillow over his head and praying that whoever is calling him will go away so that he can get back to sleep in sweet, wonderful silence. However, the phone rings again a second later. 

“Oh my fucking god --” he rolls over, grabbing the phone. He’s about to throw it across the room when he sees it’s Charlie calling. “This had better be a goddamn emergency, Charlie."

“ _Anna’s brother’s band has a gig tonight and she wants me to go with her to see them and I need you to come for back up._ ” Charlie sounds like she starts to run out of breath at the end, but she makes it through. 

“... that is not an emergency.”

“ _It totally is, Winchester. Help._ ”

“What, are you guys doing that awkward ‘are we screwing or are we dating’ song and dance again? Because I told you --”

“ _Please, no, we figured that out ages ago because we’re not emotionally challenged._ ”

“I can’t help but feel that was directed at me.”

“ _Possibly. No, the problem is that they’re a Christian indie band and they’re playing at Webster._ ”

Dean opens his eyes to stare at the ceiling while he tries to process the level of _wrongness_ in that sentence. 

“There is so much wrong with everything you just said,” Dean says. 

“ _Exactly! I need backup. Do not leave me to do this alone._ ”

“Ok, look, a) I’ve already been to Manhattan once today, and you know my rule about going more than once in 24 hours; b) Webster? What are we, 14? And c) _Christian indie_ , Charlie.”

“ _It’s eleven in the morning, how have you already been to Manhattan today?_ ”

“Ghost in the GE Building.”

“ _Ohhhh._ ”

They both lapse into silence for a couple of moments, and Dean takes the time to turn over and close his eyes, nestling the phone between his ear and the pillow. He’s contemplating grabbing the throw blanket from the basket under the table (both the basket and the blankets are Jess’ fault) when Charlie finally speaks again. 

“ _Please, Dean._ ” She sounds totally desperate. “ _I will make it up to you. I will take you out. We will go see strippers and I will pay for all the booze._ ”

“ _Fireman_ strippers,” Dean says. 

“ _Fine. That is how desperate I am for back up, I will go stare at washboard abs for you._ ”

“That _is_ desperate,” Dean says, yawning. “Fine, text me the time and I’ll drag Sam along, too.”

\---

The second time he wakes up it’s because Sam is sitting on his legs. 

“Fuck you,” Dean mumbles into his pillow. 

“Chuck has an intern,” Sam says, and Dean turns to glare at Sam over his shoulder. He’s fussing with one of his gauge plugs, tugging on his ear and not looking at Dean. 

“That’s nice,” Dean says. 

“What if I got an intern?”

“Oh my god, get the fuck offa me and let me sleep, buttmunch.” 

“They could do all the flats for me. Maybe the lettering.”

Dean bucks backwards, unseating Sam. Before Sam has the time to recover Dean has him headlocked over the arm of the couch, holding him down with a knee on either side of his hips. 

“Uncle,” Sam wheezes. Dean smirks and eases off, only to get suddenly flipped onto the ground, dangerously close to the edge of the coffee table. 

“You are a _raging douchebag_ ,” Dean says with as much force as he can manage considering he’s just had the breath knocked out of his lungs. 

“You should know better than to ever listen to me when i call uncle,” Sam points out, hanging over the edge of the couch. His hair is going several different directions, falling out of it’s perfect coiffure, which Dean takes a moment to feel smug about. 

“Just for that, you’re coming to a show with me tonight,” Dean says, hefting himself up on his elbows. 

“Ok?” Sam says, clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

“At Webster.”

“Oh my god, what the fuck, Dean. That’s cruel and unusual. Why the hell are you even going?”

“Charlie’s girlfriend’s brother’s band is playing. I’m back-up, so you get to be my back-up.” 

“Absolutely not. I’ve got work.”

“Man, I hoped you’d be more fun after you graduated.”

“Sorry for having a job.”

“Hey, douchecanoe, I have a job, too.”

They end up in a minor staring contest before Dean flops back on the floor, trying to look as pathetic as possible. 

“Please, Sammy,” he says, voice low, and Sam just glares. 

“Fine,” Sam growls finally, and Dean throws his arms up in triumph, knocking a fist into the coffee table and sending a few magazines tumbling to the ground. 

\---

Predictably, the line down 11th is about 90% Long Island high schoolers. For added fun, a decent half of the kids seem to be part of the Christian rock set. 

“You owe me _so_ many washboard abs,” Dean says to Charlie, and Charlie just offers him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “And some boobs, too.”

“I will shower you with _all_ the washboard abs and boobs and all will be better,” Charlie says, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“The band is really good, I promise,” Anna says. “Just… religious.”

“We hang out with a prophet of the Lord,” Sam points out. “How bad can this be?”

“Chuck doesn’t have 14-year-old purity ring wearing fans,” Dean mutters. 

The basement is about what Dean remembers it from when they first moved here, long enough ago that they didn’t know any better. He goes right for one of the few tables at the back, sequestering himself in a corner and deciding that he’s not moving for the rest of the night. 

“Would his majesty like a beer?” Charlie asks, rolling her eyes. 

“Now that you mention it --” Dean starts.

“Hell no,” Charlie laughs, and walks off with Anna to the bar. Dean sighs, crossing his arms. Sam slides into the booth, patting him on the leg. 

“I promise we’ll survive this,” Sam says. 

“I found out a couple of hours ago Lisa was playing at the Knitting Factory tonight. I could be there,” Dean moans. 

“I’ll find you some alcohol,” Sam says. When he returns with a tray full of shots, Dean remembers why he loves Sam.

Dean ignores the band as they’re setting up, choosing instead to get involved in a game of paper football with Sam, using the receipt from the bar. 

“You guys are ridiculous,” Charlie tells them when she comes back. Anna’s actually gone up to the stage, but Charlie seems not so up for the Sunday school mosh pit. 

“That is kind of our thing,” Dean says, biting his lip and concentrating on Sam’s fingers, where they’re splayed out in a field goal. However, Sam’s phone ring just as Dean flicks the paper triangle at him, rendering the game somewhat moot, in the absence of goal equipment. 

“Nice timing,” Dean mutters, scooting around so that he can lean back against Sam’s shoulder and cross his arms. Sam just swings one of his giant noodle arms around Dean’s shoulders and stares at his phone with determination. When Dean peeks at the screen it looks like he’s locked in a furious texting battle with Chuck over the color scheme for something comic related. 

The last person on stage is the lead singer, and he fiddles with his guitar for a bit, looking up at the crowd from under his bangs. When he steps up to the mic the crowd rushes forward, and someone screams _we love you Jimmy Novak!_ , which gets a small, hooded smile out of the guy. 

“Novak?” Dean asks. “Not Milton?”

“Their family tree is… complicated,” Charlie says, and Dean gets the feeling that she’s being deliberately cagey. 

“Charlie --” Dean’s voice is lost in a hail of teenage screaming as the lead singer starts speaking. 

“Uh, hello all,” the singer says, grinning and running a hand through his hair. He’s wearing a chunky infinity scarf the color of his eyes, and Dean glares at it. It’s probably from Etsy. Hipster. “We’re Raised from Perdition.”

“Oh my god,” Dean groans, letting his head drop back onto Sam’s shoulder. “ _Christian indie_ , who let that be a thing.”

The worst part is that the singer -- Jimmy, Dean guesses -- is actually somewhat of a sight for sore eyes. Once Dean gets over his knee jerk distaste for chunky knit items, he’s man enough to admit that Jimmy’s kinda bangable. Probably super straight, what with the whole religious band thing, but hey, Dean can still oogle, annoying unobtainable as he is. 

“Stop drooling,” Sam says, leaning close to Dean’s ear so that he can be heard over the music. Which is also kinda good. Weird. It’s helped by the fact that Jimmy’s got a much deeper, rougher voice than Dean would have pegged, and it makes their sound interesting. 

“You know I can’t do that,” Dean says.

“You _would_ probably strain something,” Sam sighs. Dean just grins at Sam out of the corner of his eye. 

\---

After the band heads off stage and there’s no one for Dean to stare at he stalks outside, pulling out a cigarette and fumbling for a lighter in his pockets. He comes up with a loose Metrocard, a switchblade, and a lock pick, but nothing incendiary. 

“Shit,” he mutters around his cigarette, and is about to admit defeat and go back instead to get Sam’s matches when a hand appears in his vision, holding a lighter. 

He looks up to find Jimmy Novak looking at him with his eyebrows raised. He’s added a pea coat to his outfit, the collar turned up around his scarf, and between that and the double buckle shoes and skinnies he looks the lovechild of a Wall Street-Williamsburg hate fuck. 

“Thanks man,” Dean mumbles, letting Jimmy light the cigarette. 

“Not a problem,” Jimmy says, and there’s that voice again. It’s so gravely it’s bordering on ridiculous. He definitely sounds better signing than talking. “I saw you with Anna, inside. You’re friends?”

“Tangentially. She’s, uh… friend of a friend,” Dean says, breathing smoke out as he talks. 

“I know about her and Charlie’s relationship,” Jimmy says, and Dean clears his throat to avoid saying something stupid. 

“You do?”

“Anna told me.”

“Huh.”

They stand in silence for a moment before Dean realizes that Jimmy doesn’t even know who he is, so he sticks a hand out. Jimmy shakes it, looking slightly flummoxed. 

“Sorry, I’m Dean.”

“Yes, I knew that,” Jimmy says, and Dean frowns at him. “I’m Castiel.”

“You’re -- sorry? I thought you were Jimmy.”

“I was.” 

That sends alarm bells ringing in Dean’s head, and he slips a hand into his pocket, carefully, rubbing a thumb along the switchblade. It’s silver, he’s not stupid, but it’s also pretty wimpy, and it’s all he has on him. 

“ _Was_ Jimmy?” Dean asks. 

“Yes. James Novak was the name the human couple who raised me gave me.”

Dean’s got him pressed up against the side of the building in the space of a heartbeat, arm over his neck, his full weight behind it. Jimmy just blinks at him, something dark passing across his expression for the briefest of moments. Dean doesn’t miss the way his hands curl into fists at his sides. 

“What’re you?” Dean hisses at him. 

“I am an _angel_ ,” he rasps out, and Dean backs off a bit out of surprise. When Dean doesn’t say anything, just stares at him with his jaw slightly unhinged, Jimmy prompts, “of the Lord?”

“An angel,” Dean says, and Jimmy manages to half-nod. “A freaking _angel_.”

“Yes,” Jimmy says, frowning. “We’ve established that. Back off.” 

Dean does, stepping backwards, and Jimmy coughs, lifting a hand to rub against his throat. 

“So, when Anna said you were siblings, did she mean she was Jimmy’s sister, or…” Dean says.

“Castiel’s?”

“Yeah.”

“We are both the children of God. We fell at similar times, and helped each other find our graces. And she clearly didn’t tell you any of this, did she?”

Dean sputters at him for a second before running his hands through his hair. Evidently Charlie’s been banging an angel, without letting Dean in on the secret. Good fucking times.

“Half of that is gibberish, but I what I _do_ know is that I need a friggen drink,” Dean says, and Jimmy -- _Castiel_ \-- just looks at Dean like he’s trying to figure him out. 

\---

It turns out that the whole freaking band is a bunch of angels. Dean’s head hurts. 

“You’re taking this whole angel indie band thing well,” Dean mutters, and Sam shrugs. 

“We’re technically a garrison,” Castiel points out. For some reason that Dean can’t quite figure out, he’s followed them down into the Subway, even though the other three -- Balthazar, Hester, and Inias, how’s that for a ridiculous grab bag of names -- had left earlier, heading uptown. 

“We’re pretty much a band, now,” Anna says. “Well, and me.”

“Yeah, how come you’re not in the band?” Charlie says.

“Someone had to be manager,” Anna says, shrugging. 

Dean rolls his eyes and tries not to die a bit inside when they get to the platform and the readout says that the next train is in 23 goddamn minutes. 

“We’re going to die down in these tunnels one day,” Dean says sullenly. “Remember when the L actually ran on a normal schedule?”

“Did it ever?” Sam asks with a heavy sigh.

“You guys do know that it’s only like two more blocks to the M from your place, right?” Charlie asks. 

“Three and a half,” Sam says. Charlie sighs. 

“I could just fly you home,” Castiel says. 

“You could -- sorry, did you say _fly_?” Dean asks. 

“That’s usually how I get around,” Castiel says. 

“This might be the weirdest night of my life,” Dean says, and he seriously means it. 

“Why the band, anyway?” Sam asks. 

“Honestly, just to reach a wider audience with the whole word of God thing,” Anna says. “I think we’re slated to get a recording contract in like four months.”

“Hipster angel rockstars?” Dean asks incredulously. 

“Yeah, pretty much,” Anna says. 

“Weirder things have happened,” Sam says. Dean thinks he’s totally and utterly wrong. 

\---

Dean’s story starts again. It starts when Castiel lights a cigarette for him and Dean goes to bed keyed-up and drawn tight, listening to the shuffling and scratching noises from the main room as Sam works in ink. Dean knows he’s getting it all over his hands -- he always does that. He’ll keep the table clean, and his lines will be perfect, but his fingers will be black and there will be smudges up to his wrists and sometimes on his face. 

The whole _there are angels among us_ thing doesn’t sit well with him. He’s had dreams before, dreams that mention them, swirling, half-formed things that seem more like memories than random brain firings. 

(He’s been having one lately, over and over again, where he claws his way out of a pine box in a flattened forest, only it’s not _him_ , strictly speaking, and that word gets tossed around a lot. Angels.)

He gives up trying to sleep at just past three and gets up with an angry huff, kicking at his covers like it’s their fault, and stalking to the kitchen. Sam doesn’t pay him much mind, he’s slipped into the strange place where he’s had about five Red Bulls, a Four Loko, and no sleep in going on what has to be like 36 hours. 

“Want another?” Dean asks, speaking into the fridge, and Sam grunts, which Dean takes as a yes. He drops the Red Bull by Sam’s elbow and leans over the table so that he can see what he’s working on. 

They’d figured out pretty fast that while Chuck was a prophet, he was tuned into the wrong wavelength. His stories are a kind of Winchester gospel, if Sam and Dean were just a little rougher, a little more broken, a little too used to losing people. They never move to New York, they don’t stick together when Sam goes to college, they lose their mom even earlier (to a goddamn _demon_ ), and there’s something fundamentally wrong with Sam and seriously cracked in Dean. Dean’s always thought it’s bleak as shit, but people read the comics, so someone must like it. 

Sam’s working on a wide panel, the two figures in it close together, almost nose to nose. One’s easy to identify -- the kinda buff, frownier version of him -- but he doesn’t know the other one, some twisted husk of a guy who’s got a razor-wire smirk, teeth dark with blood. Dean’s got him by the jaw, fingers digging into the guy’s skin. 

The rest of the page, half inked, half sketched, is a mess of blood and knives and chains, the twisted figure strung up on a pointed star frame. 

“Kinky,” Dean notes dryly, sitting back. “What exactly am I getting up to now in Chuck’s weird version of our lives?” 

“Uh,” Sam drags his eyes away, like it hurts, blinking at Dean. His eyes are rimmed in red, his hair falling and fanning across his cheeks. He looks like shit, but he always does when he goes and goes like this, so far into that other world that he’s almost a part of it. “You’re awake.”

“Yep,” Dean says. Sam blinks at him for a moment before speaking again.

“And, um, you’re… torturing a demon.”

“I’m what?” Dean asks incredulously. He swears he’s got to suspend more and more disbelief with each passing issue. 

“Yeah, after you came back from -- wait, what issue are you up to?” 

“12. I was super dead the last time I was reading, so the whole ‘alive’ bit is kind of a surprise.”

“Hold on --” Sam shuffles things out of the way so that he can pull his laptop out. He fires it up, frowning at the screen before handing it to Dean. The proof PDFs for issues 13 and 14 are sitting waiting for him. 

Dean reaches for the Red Bull he’d just gotten for Sam and starts reading. 

\---

Benny calls him at nine, asking where the hell he is.

“Shit,” Dean says, sitting upright so fast that he knocks a couple of Red Bull cans to the floor. Sam’s passed out on top of a box of markers, drooling, and Dean’s pretty sure he’s going to have a permanent impression of Sam’s keyboard on his cheek. 

He stumbles into the shop bleary-eyed and feeling slightly hungover. Benny’s got the coffee pot behind the counter going. 

“Oh thank god,” Dean says, resting his forehead on the top of the coffee maker. Benny just raises his eyebrows at Dean. Dean flips him off and continues nuzzling the coffee maker. 

He’s sequestered himself behind the computer, feet up on the counter and coffee protectively clutched between his palms, before Benny decides to start in on him. 

“So, long night?” Benny asks, looking back from where he’s taking one of the longboards on the wall rack down. 

“Not like what you’re thinking,” Dean says, yawning. “I couldn’t sleep and ended up reading through the next couple issues of the comic.”

“You do know how incredibly strange it is that you have a comic of your life, right?” Benny asks.

“It’s not _my_ life. Strictly speaking.”

“That makes it stranger.” 

“You’re just jealous that you’re not in it!” Dean calls as Benny heads into the back. 

Dean just sighs and slumps a bit further in the chair. He’d gotten through 13 and 14, and then devoured Chuck’s script for 15, and it had explained a few things. Namely, that the dreams he’s been having about angels and rebirth and the apocalypse are evidently real things. In a way. It’s freaking him out a bit. 

It also explains why Sam was totally unworried about the whole angel thing -- Castiel was introduced in issue 13. Granted, that Castiel -- who comic-Dean had named Cas, which Dean is thinking about adopting -- had been brought into the story when he’d literally pulled Dean out of Hell. 

And somewhere in there Dean had started the apocalypse. Dean’s really hoping that the whole apocalypse deal is limited to the pages of the comics, but it’s been gnawing at him. 

He spends the day making a couple of bike and board sales, doing a quick tire change on a guy’s bike when he limps in after hitting a fire hydrant (ow), and keeping up a steady stream of traded insults and jokes with Benny. It keeps his mind busy.

Dean’s actually glad that Benny isn’t in the comics. Considering their tone, he’s probably got some massively tragic backstory, and no doubt Dean met him in some horrible way. He likes reality: Benny’s from the Big Easy, was turned by a rich old dude with a yacht obsession, and he and Dean met via a party that ended in some awesomely apartment destroying sex. 

This real version of Benny is probably way happier than Benny would be in the comics. That seems to be a running theme. Dean thought he’d seen grimdark comics just by virtue of living through the 90s, but Chuck’s writing takes the cake by a depressing margin. 

“So what’s weighing down your shoulders, brother?” Benny asks when they’re locking up, Dean helping him roll down the security grill mostly out of habit. Benny could probably rip the thing clean off, but it always seems to be both of their hands on it at the end of the day. 

“Some weird shit,” Dean says. “Like, I gotta go talk to a prophet about the apocalypse levels of weird.” 

“Say hello to Shurley for me,” Benny laughs, and Dean just grins in response. 

\---

The kid who answers the door isn’t Chuck.

“You’re not Chuck,” Dean says, frowning, and the kid sighs. He’s got semi-shaggy hair, artfully ignored stubble, and a shirt that suggests he goes to Columbia. 

“Wow, great observation,” he says. “He left to get food, but you can wait for him if you want.”

“You’re just going to let a random guy into Chuck’s apartment?” Dean asks. 

In response the kid just opens the door all the way and slouches off. Dean toes it closed behind him, taking a moment to acquaint himself with how much of a disaster zone the place is on this particular night. Chuck claims he knows where everything is in the apartment, but Dean has his doubts. Like, massive doubts. 

The kid flops down on the couch and picks up his computer. The only other spare places to sit are Chuck’s desk chair and the floor. Dean steals the chair, kicking his feet up on Chuck’s laptop. 

“Seriously, kid,” Dean says. “You should check who and what you let into this apartment.”

“You’re Dean Winchester, the baseboard in the door frame is iron and has salt under it and there’s a devil’s trap under the front hall carpet.” The kid looks up from his computer, looking mildly insulted. “I do check who and what I let into this apartment.” 

“Huh,” Dean says. “Intern?”

“Kevin,” the kid says. “But yes.”

“So you’ve been spending your days staring at my face,” Dean says, smirking, and Kevin just rubs at his face with a sigh. 

“You’re skinnier than I expected,” Kevin says in retaliation. 

“Hey, c’mon --”

The door opens with a bang, and they both turn to see Chuck stumble through it, weighed down by two pizzas and a bottle of soda. He drops it all on the coffee table, on top of a stack of comics that look dangerously close to sliding off the table. 

“That’s a lot of pizza,” Kevin says. 

“I knew Dean would be here,” Chuck says. 

That’s the thing about Chuck -- he’s got the whole world of the comic info-dumped into his head, but he only gets tiny flashes of their world. Aside from knowing when Sam’s going to send him an email, or what to get Dean from Starbucks, or how long it’s going to be until a train shows up, it’s not incredibly useful. 

“Thanks, man,” Dean says, and relinquishes Chuck’s chair to him in the pursuit of pizza. 

“Is Sam dying or something?” Chuck asks.

“No, I’m here for me, not Sam,” Dean says. 

“Oh,” Chuck freezes, and then carefully rotates his chair towards Dean. “Um, what happened? More problems with characterization?” 

(Dean might have bitched him out via a string of progressively angrier texts about all the things he would _never_ have done in real life after the first issue came out.)

“Nope,” Dean says, perching on the arm of the couch and digging into a slice. “It’s about the apocalypse.” 

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Chuck says. 

“Specifically: can it happen here? Like, in our world. I’m trying to figure out if I’m in danger of starting the end of the world, here,” Dean says.

“I mean, I don’t know,” Chuck sighs. “You know I don’t really know what’s going on _here_ here. There was a whole lead up to that, anyway. You’re not planning on selling your soul to save Sam any time soon, right? I mean, I know you guys are kind of clingy, but you’re not like _comics_ clingy.”

“Hey,” Dean says, pointing at Chuck. “Do not doubt what I’d do for Sam. I’d move to Queens -- hell, to _Staten Island_ for Sam.”

“Well, we might have an end of the world problem, but not an apocalypse problem,” Chuck says. “Staten Island, really?”

“Sammy’s worth it,” Dean mutters. 

“You guys are a little bit gay,” Kevin says, and Dean shoots him a glare. Kevin just shrugs before returning to whatever he’s working on. 

“No,” Chuck sighs. “I don’t think we’ll have an apocalypse problem on our hands here. I mean, you guys never had the Yellow Eyes problem, and that whole mess, and you’re still in possession of the destiny of your soul and yadda yadda, all that crap, so probably not. I mean, I really, really hope. Just don’t move to Staten Island, that might trigger something.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, not planning on it,” Dean says. 

Dean steals another slice of pizza and is working on leaving when Chuck suddenly straightens up, blinking for a moment with a wince. Dean freezes -- he knows that look. 

“What, do I trip on the way down the stairs?” Dean asks. 

“No,” Chuck says, frowning. “But I think you have a date on Friday.”

“ _What_ ,” Dean says flatly. That’s way worse than tripping down the stairs. Dean Winchester does not go on dates. “Details, _now_.”

\---

Weirdly enough, Cas is sitting with Sam at the table when Dean gets home. 

“Uh, why is there an angel in the kitchen?” Dean asks. 

“I’m helping Sam with character design,” Cas mutters, not looking away from where Sam is sketching. Dean dumps his bag and coat on the couch and comes over to look over Sam’s shoulder. 

Whatever he’s drawing, it’s… strange. It’s humanoid, in a way, but disjointed, empty space between creeping limbs, and seems to have four faces around a curl of light, like the lantern in a lighthouse. The wings are also weird, undefined and made of something shimmering. Galaxies, maybe. 

“Trippy,” Dean says. “What the hell is it?” 

“An angel,” Cas says. “There is no way to truly render our forms in a 2D space, but Sam is doing an admirable job.”

“Wow,” Sam says, looking up, mildly amused. “Hear that, I’m admirable.” 

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Dean says, punching him in the shoulder. 

“You smell like pizza,” Sam accuses as Dean slips into the chair next to him. “Did you get pizza without me?”

“Nah, I went to Chuck’s, there was pizza there. I had to go make sure I wasn’t going to accidentally doom the world or anything,” Dean says. 

“How so?” Cas asks, looking up at Dean.

“In the comics, Dean breaks the first seal of the apocalypse,” Sam says. 

“Oh, yeah, the righteous man spilling blood in Hell,” Cas says. “Don’t worry, that’s happening in an alternate reality to your own, and was already started and averted roughly a millennium ago in this universe.” 

“Huh, that’s handy to know,” Dean says, tipping back in his chair and watching Sam draw. He’s not sure why, but watching Sam draw has always been calming, in a weird way. 

“It was your ancestors, though,” Cas says. “It has to be brothers who are of the bloodline of Cain and Abel.”

Dean and Sam look up at each other, frowning, and then turn to Cas. 

“Wait, the whole Cain and Abel descendants thing is real?” Sam asks. 

“What?” Dean asks, narrowing his eyes. 

“Yeah, sorry, that’s like way ahead -- Chuck mentioned it as a plot point for the future, lemme find the notes.” Sam stretches across the table to get one of his moleskines, flipping through it and biting his bottom lip as he looks. “Yeah, we’re descendants of Cain and Abel. I guess for real, not just in the comics.” 

“You are,” Cas confirms. “Although you don’t live in the universe of the comics, you’re still very similar to your counterparts. All alternate selves are.”

“This is so weird,” Dean says, and then, after a pause. “I feel like I’m saying that a lot, these days.” 

“You are,” Sam says. “But it’s kind of justified. I mean, band of angels --”

“Garrison,” Cas corrects. 

“-- whatever, _flock_ of angels, what’s going in the comics, it’s a lot,” Sam says. 

“Yeah, and I’ve been dreaming about it,” Dean mutters. Sam looks up at him sharply, frowning. 

“You have?” He asks. 

“Not often, just… from time to time.”

“I thought it was just me.”

Dean looks away from where he’s picking at a nail, staring at Sam. He’s looking torn between worry and relief, something that should look strange, but the expression is so profoundly Sam that Dean knows exactly what he’s feeling. He’s seen it a hundred times before. 

“Due to the nature of the apocalypse, you’re probably having bleed through from that universe,” Cas says. “I’d hazard a guess that it’s going both ways, as well.” 

“So what, us in the… other universe -- _so weird_ \-- they’re dreaming about our lives?” Dean says. 

“Possibly,” Cas says. 

“Shit, we accidentally subjected our alternate reality selves to Webster Hall,” Sam says. “And they’re already dealing with the end of the world.”

“Poor fuckers,” Dean says. 

\---

Aside from Sam getting progressively more strung out as the end of the week approaches, nothing exceptionally horrible happens. Dean takes care of a poltergeist for one of Bobby’s friends up in Yonkers, and he keeps dreaming, but he just pushes it away. If he dwells on all this shit, it’s just going to make him way less productive and possibly also a basket case. 

On Thursday night, they find out Cas has absolutely perfect printing. Sam, who Dean has never seen ask for help with anything art related, had dumped a pile of pages that need lettering in front of Cas in such a hurry that even Cas looked like he was dealing with a bit of whiplash. 

Considering the pages are due in 24 hours, Dean doesn’t even try his usual wheedling, just grabs his coat and bikes over to Benny’s. This close to zero hour Sam’s usually just better left alone, and Dean knows better at this point. 

Benny’s watching rugby, so Dean flops down on the couch, legs across Benny’s lap, and amuses himself by scrolling through the _Times_ obits on his phone looking for cases. Benny hooks a hand over Dean’s knee, running his thumb over the rough denim, but other than that, pays attention to the game. 

Dean can’t tell if he’s actually that committed to watching the game, or if he’s doing this to wind Dean up. Benny knows just as well as anyone that it doesn’t take much. Dean is fully aware of the fact that he’s massively easy, and owns the shit out of it. 

The obits turn out to all seem like normal, everyday type deaths, so Dean gives up and decides to scour the _Post_ instead. It’s kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel (and seriously, Dean’s not sure what people would think if they ever decided to steal his phone, because between things like the _Post_ app and one about grave records in the Tri-state area and the digital version of his dad’s journal that Charlie had drummed up for them, his apps make him look like a psycho with _horrible_ taste in journalism), but sometimes they accidentally stumble onto some half truths. 

“Oh great, the Merchant’s House is doing another haunting tour,” Dean mutters, poking at the ad at the bottom of his phone. “They’re just encouraging the fuckers at this point.”

“How many times have you boys been over there?” Benny asks, voice quiet and vowels long this late in the day. 

“Like, at least five or six,” Dean says. “They send us Christmas cards every year at this point.” 

Benny laughs, that rumble of his, and his hand inches higher, following the lines of Dean’s thigh, but his fingers stall way too low. Dean tosses his phone onto the table and sits up to straddle Benny’s lap, hands on the back of the couch. 

“You’re in a hurry,” Benny notes, edges of his mouth quirking up. 

“When am I not?” Dean asks, and Benny lets his head fall back against the couch, laughing. Dean noses under his jaw, long ago having gotten used to the chill of Benny’s skin, and he brings a hand up to cup the back of Dean’s head. 

Maybe it’s a bit roundabout, him scraping his teeth over Benny’s jugular, but it’ll always make Benny stutter out a little breath that he doesn’t need to take, and Dean loves that noise. 

\---

He wakes up at Benny’s to a text from Jess, who hasn’t heard from Sam in what’s approaching 48 hours. 

_nt dead via monsters, deadline on fri nite_ , Dean sleepily texts back before rolling over and tucking himself into Benny’s side. 

“Business?” Benny asks. 

“Jess,” Dean murmurs against his skin. “Wanted to make sure Sammy wasn’t dead.”

“We should get up,” Benny says, and he actually sounds kind of disappointed that he has to say it. “It’s almost eight.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean mutters, not moving, but he does let Benny haul him out of bed eventually. 

It’s started getting colder, a snap in the air in the morning and evening that means summer’s on its way out. Dean didn’t used to hate winter quite so much, but they’d also tried to stick to warmer latitudes during winter when he was a kid. Coming up on his fifth winter in a place that’s frozen from November through March kinda blows. If nothing else, it seriously cramps their hunting style, because there’s not much you can do to dig six feet into frozen ground. It’s just not going to happen. Winter has kind of become walking and talking, flesh and blood monster season around the Winchester household. 

“Winter blows,” Dean sighs, pulling his hat further down over his ears when they stop at a light. 

“It’s September,” Benny says, smirking, and Dean just sighs heavily. 

“You know it’s right around the goddamn corner,” Dean grouses.

Benny grins at him before jumping the stoplight, leaving Dean to tear after him through traffic, complaining about the weather as loudly as possible and not letting Benny get too far ahead. 

If he was a masochist he’d probably analyze why he’s antagonizing a vampire on a bike in heavy morning traffic, but he’s not. Mostly. Sorta. Benny’s laughing when they stop anyway, brushing tears away. Dean’s always been great at that, getting him to laugh with his whole body. 

\---

When Dean shoulders his way into their hallway from the stairs that night, he finds the hall blocked by dolly track and corresponding skateboard dolly.

“ _Spruce_!” He roars, and a second later the door at the far end of the hall opens just far enough for someone to peek out. 

“Oh shit,” the someone mutters. “Dean’s here.”

“What?” Someone else says, their voice muffled behind the door. “But it’s Friday night! He’s always out on Friday nights.”

Dean cracks his fingers and tries to remind himself that murdering his neighbors will not go well in the long run, no matter how good of an idea it seems in the short term.

The door opens all the way, revealing Harry, Ed, and Spruce. Dean makes deliberate eye contact and then kicks the dolly down the track. Spruce’s eyes go comically wide, like Dean’s just dropped his dog off the BQE. 

“Clean this shit up,” Dean says, pointing down. 

“We’re filming a very important scene, _Dean_ ,” Harry says, crossing his arms. 

“Well find another hallway, _Harry_ ,” Dean says. He contemplates ridding the dolly down the hallway, but decides against it when Harry looks like he might start actually growling at him if he does anything else. “You do know this building isn’t haunted, right?”

Seriously, the idiots. Like he and Sam would live in a haunted building. Or not take care of it the moment they moved in. 

“We’ve moved on,” Ed says. “Greener pastures. We’ve got a backer for a scripted film. A _serious_ film.”

“Oh great,” Dean mutters as he rolls open the door. 

The apartment isn’t in the disarray that Dean thought it would be. While the table is still kind of a mess, it’s _always_ kind of a mess, and Sam isn’t sprawled asleep across it or anything. In fact, neither he nor Cas are anywhere to be found. 

There’s a stack of finished pages next to the scanner in the corner, and Dean picks his way through them out of curiosity. 

_Grasshopper, you’re going to have to get creative to impress me._

It’s even creepier in color. Dean’s fully aware that he’s trigger happy -- and, ok, he did once take a vampire’s head off with a table saw and it was kind of awesome -- but he’s pretty sure he’s not capable of torture. Even a demon. 

He’s about to toss it back into the stack when he sees the one under it. It’s him and Cas. Or, technically, not. The Cas of the comics is probably the most jarring change. Sure, Sam’s got a radically different haircut from his comics counterpart, and both he and Dean wear 100% more skinny jeans in real life, but they look basically the same. Cas? Not so much. Chunky-knit scarf and peacoat wearing Cas dresses like he’s the embodiment of middle management in the comics. It’s causing some serious cognitive dissonance.

_You ask me to open that door and walk through it, you will not like what walks back out._

“Fuck,” Dean murmurs to the empty apartment, scrubbing a hand across his jaw. 

“Dean?” 

Dean turns to find Cas standing in Sam’s doorway, looking slightly bleary. He’s stripped down to a white t-shirt, and Dean’s surprised to see, when he carefully shuts the door behind him, that he’s got tattoos. 

“Wings?” Dean asks. “Isn’t that a little bit cliche?” 

“I thought they were appropriate,” Cas says with a little shrug, rubbing at one of the wings almost like it’s a subconscious movement. They extend down the outsides of his arms, almost to his elbows, and they’re not the usual fluffy crap. They’re rendered in strong blackwork, minimalist and angular. They’re actually kinda cool, if Dean’s being honest. 

“Never seen an angel with tattoos,” Dean says, grinning. 

“God works in mysterious ways,” Cas says, and although he says it completely seriously, Dean gets the impression he’s actually throwing some serious sass. 

“Well, they’re pretty legit,” Dean says with a shrug. 

“Sam designed yours, didn’t he?”

“Uh, yeah.”

(The half-sleeve that takes up his left arm is all Sam’s art, a visual record of their life story, demons and ghosts, vampires and werewolves, favorite guns and burnt bones.)

“Sam’s a good artist,” Cas says, and he takes the bristol board out of Dean’s hands, putting it gently back in the pile. “Don’t let this bother you, Dean. You’re not him.” 

“Yeah, but I am,” Dean sighs. “I mean, I might not be exactly him, but you said it the other day -- we’re similar.”

“You’re both the sons of Mary and John Winchester, you were both born in Lawrence, you both lost your mothers. But the Dean that Chuck writes about lost a father, and a brother, and his own life. The ground he walks on always seems to be falling out from under him. You’re rooted. Stable.” 

“Losing mom, though,” Dean says, quiet. “That was the start of all this.”

“He lost her to a very specific demon. You to a passing shifter. That’s a big difference, Dean, and it counts. Profoundly.” 

Dean stares at the pile of pages for another moment before he slumps a bit, shaking his head at himself. 

“Sorry. I just -- it’s been a steep learning curve this past bit. Angels, the comic’s real, all that stuff. The dreams,” Dean says, fidgeting with his necklace. “You know what, screw it, I’m ordering pizza. This is way too much moping for me.” 

Cas looks thrown at the change of topic, going from insanely sober to squinting in confusion, but he does agree to go pick it up, as delivery is running long. Hey, the man can fly, and Dean doesn’t feel like waiting 45 minutes for pizza from two blocks over.

\---

Sam appears about an hour later, hair an utter disaster and clothes rumpled, and zeroes in on the pizza on the coffee table like a man possessed. 

“Got everything done?” Dean asks when Sam drops down on the couch next to him, knocking their knees together. 

“Yeah, thanks to Cas,” Sam says. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d been sent as a miracle to help me get stuff done.”

“You should really hire a second artist,” Cas says. 

“I know,” Sam says before attempting to stifle a giant yawn. “But, whatever, another issue done and in.”

“Not sure how much I like this one,” Dean says, and he reaches out to tuck some of Sam’s hair hair behind his ear. It doesn’t do much, and Sam blows a bit more of it out of his face, which doesn’t help a whole lot either. 

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Sam mutters. “I’m getting really sick of drawing you getting beat up and me being jacked up on demon blood.” 

“Hey, at least you saved my ass,” Dean says.

“Well, yeah,” Sam says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. 

Dean lets Sam click through channels, laughing a bit when he stops at Jeopardy. They manage to answer most of the questions between the two of them, Cas shooting them interested looks from time to time. 

“Man, it’s a shame we can’t play as a team, we’d been unstoppable,” Dean says. “We’d make serious bank.”

“We’ve probably got faster reflexes than most of them, too,” Sam says, and he looks like he might actually be contemplating the logistics of them being on Jeopardy.

Dean gets up to clear away the pizza box, listening as all three of the contestants somehow manage to get the final question wrong.

“God, it’s fucking amateur hour,” Dean says. 

“Like you know where the Göta Canal is,” Sam says. 

“No, but I’m also not actually on the show.” 

“I know where it is. I’d be good at this,” Cas says, frowning at the TV. 

“I think you’d be cheating,” Dean laughs. 

“The angel thing would give you an unfair advantage,” Sam says, grinning. He stands up, stretching and cracking what sounds like multiple things at once. “I’ve been sitting still for way too long, I need to go for a ride.”

“Wanna go to Waverly? We haven’t been there in a while,” Dean says. 

“Holy shit,” Sam says. “Hey, Cas, write this day down in your diary, Dean just volunteered to go into Manhattan.”

“Oh, don’t give me that shit, they’ve got bottomless coffee and the best burgers,” Dean says, crossing his arms. “Can you ride a bike, Feathers?”

“Of course,” Cas says. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“Awesome,” Dean says, hopping up and slapping Cas on the shoulder as he passes. “Let’s go introduce you to not getting run over by homicidal taxis in the pursuit of diner coffee.” 

\---

They grab their bikes (plus an extra one that Benny keeps over at their place) and then send Cas up and down the street a few times to prove that yes, he can indeed ride a bike. 

“I’m slightly worried about sending an angel into Friday night traffic,” Sam says.

“If I’m injured I can heal myself,” Cas says, shrugging. “I’ll be fine.”

“Great, we’re going to go down in history as the guys who turned an angel into roadkill,” Sam sighs. 

Sam insists that they keep Cas between them, even though Dean’s pretty sure he’s got this. Not only can he actually ride a fixie, but he’s an angel. That probably confers some kind of next-level dexterity and control. 

Dean just puts his head down and goes. Even though the air streaming by his body is cold he just rides straight into it, staring down the traffic and leading the charge up Broadway. This’ll never quite satisfy his need to move, to run, like the Impala does, but at times like this, when he knows he’ll just sit idling in traffic over the bridge burning daylight and gas, his bike is a pretty good second choice. 

Gridlock streaks by in drags of tail lights and street lamps, the wind pulling at him, and he loves every deep, cold breath he takes. Over the hum of the city (of something that feels like home), over the throbbing of car stereos and angry honking, he can hear Sam laughing. When he chances a quick look back he can see that Sam is roaring with laughter, Cas looking slightly scowly, his shoulders rigid. The cause of amusement has to be the woman slightly behind them, standing in the open door of a cab and screaming and cursing Cas seven ways to Sunday. 

Dean bites his tongue, grinning at them, and turns his attention back to not getting dead via traffic.

He loves crossing any of the bridges at night, the cars flying by in counterpoint to the water under them, people traveling from one field of light to another. As much as he hates it on principle, nothing looks like lower Manhattan all lit up at night. He’s criss-crossed pretty much every state, every city, but he hadn’t seen anything like this, buildings reaching for the sky. When he’d moved out here to join Sam, something had seemed as right as it was ever going to get, the lights of the city like a beacon. 

The traffic on the other side of the bridge is nothing but horns and brake lights, and Dean dips between cabs and buses, slowing up to squeeze between lanes before he actually has to stop at a light. 

“We could take Prince,” Sam suggests, pulling up next to him. Dean just shoots him an incredulous look. 

“Yeah, no. Remember that time I nearly got clotheslined by an _actual clothing rack_?” Dean says. “We’re taking Houston.”

(They’d been chasing a vetala-cum-fashion intern at the time.)

“Oh yeah, that was Prince,” Sam says, grinning. 

“How did you manage to run into something that big?” Cas asks from Dean’s other side, and Dean sighs, letting his head hang. 

“It was pretty excellent,” Sam says, sounding way too pleased. “I am _so_ sorry I didn’t have a camera.”

Dean rolls his eyes, and Sam reaches out to bump him in the shoulder, getting him to look up. Sam gives him a look, kind of an _you ok?_ thing, and Dean just smiles softly and nods. Sam’s face relaxes, and he takes a deep breath before taking off again, leaving Dean to bring up the rear this time.

\---

They’re halfway through dinner, the three of them squeezed into a small both at the back of the diner, when something occurs to Dean.

He’s in a good mood. A _great_ mood. He wasn’t lying when he told Sam he was ok. Sure, everything’s still eating at him, but sitting here with Sam and Cas and just laughing, poking and prodding at each other and playing keep away with Cas’ scarf -- it feels awesome. In this moment, right here, everything’s ok. 

The realization is so sudden it startles a laugh out of him, which in turn gets him weird looks from both Sam and Cas. 

“What?” Sam asks. 

“Chuck had a vision -- like, one of ours, not a comic one. He said I had a date on Friday. He must have meant this,” Dean says. 

“I’m pretty sure this isn’t a date,” Cas says. 

“He said all he saw was me laughing in a restaurant in Manhattan and that he just felt _love_ ,” Dean says, grinning. “So, wrong on the date part, but right on everything else.” 

“Aw, Dean, you _do_ have feelings,” Sam says, smirking, and Dean flicks some of his water at him. Sam laughs, and reaches across the table to steal a couple of fries in retaliation. 

“Hey, I contain multitudes,” Dean says, leaning back against the booth and grinning. 

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Sam says. “I’d say that the next issue will be better, but, uh… this is Chuck we’re talking about. And the apocalypse.”

“If this keeps up, by issue 20 we’ll both be empty husks of people. And probably broken up,” Dean says. “If not dead. Again.”

“Ah, no, don’t say that,” Sam says, mock pouting. “We’re my favorite couple!” 

“Don’t lie, you think Sam should end up with Ruby.”

“Yep, you’ve caught me. I want Sam to go buy a house with a picket fence and settle down in the suburbs with Ruby. I don’t think demons can have kids, so we’ll have to fill the hole in our life with some rescue dogs instead.” 

“Actually, demons can have children,” Cas says. “The offspring are called cambion. Or the anti-Christ.”

“What the fuck,” Dean says. 

“The anti-Christ is a thing?” Sam asks, looking mildly disturbed. 

“Well, not in the way the Bible says, but yes, it can happen,” Cas says. 

“Jesus,” Dean says. 

Cas looks like he wants to contend that, but he stays silent. 

“I’m pretty sure we had a normal life at some point,” Sam says. 

“Yeah, when I was about five and you were a baby,” Dean says. 

“The good old days,” Sam says with a grin. 

“Oh, like you remember them,” Dean says, smirking. 

Sam kicks him under the table and Dean lobs a tomato slice into his milkshake and Cas just looks incredibly exasperated. 

\---

Jess is at the apartment when they get back. She’s neatly stacked all of Sam’s supplies at the far end of the table and has a bunch of rolls of paper spread out in place of them. 

“Hey, you survived another deadline,” Jess says, standing on tiptoes to kiss Sam when he slips an arm around her waist. 

“Yeah, thanks to Cas,” Sam says, pointing at him. “Cas, Jess; Jess, Cas.”

“Um, hello,” Cas says, shaking her hand. She laughs, grinning at him. 

“Trust me, no formalities needed,” Jess says. “It’s all cool.”

“Yo, Cas,” Dean calls when he kicks open his door. “C’mere.” 

Cas goes without protest, walking by Sam and Jess as she explains to Sam that she’s working on a Brownstone gut remodel in Park Slope. 

“What do you need?” Cas asks when the door is shut behind them, slumping a little bit, hands tucked in his pockets. He’s looked tired since Dean first saw him tonight, but he’s looking even more beat now. 

“Do you sleep?” Dean asks. 

“Uh, no,” Cas says. “I haven’t needed to in a long time.”

“Dude, you look like death walking. You need to.”

“It’s possible that working with Sam tired me out,” Cas says. “And that I’m crashing from a caffeine high.” 

Dean laughs at that, and moves to Cas to tug on his coat. 

“C’mon, off,” Dean says, and he helps him shrug out of the coat, pulling Cas’ scarf off as they both manage to kick off shoes. “Long days mean sleep, Angel.” 

“You should sleep too,” Cas says, frowning.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m attempting to do,” Dean says, shoving Cas in the direction of his bed. 

Cas goes down with a little whump before shoving himself backwards, kicking at the covers in a move that Dean realizes is almost identical to what he would have done. Dean goes after him, slinging an arm across his chest. 

“You and Sam are both very tactile,” Cas notes in the dark. 

“Deal with it,” Dean says. “Fact of life is that you’re always going sleep better with another body in bed.”

“Which Sam also basically said.”

“Great minds think alike,” Dean says. “Mine’s better though.”

“You both have bright minds,” Cas says, sounding offended on Sam’s behalf. 

“Joke, Cas. Go the fuck to sleep.” 

Cas shifts a bit under Dean’s arm, but he does settle into the sheets with a little sigh. 

\---

Fall swings in with an angry right hook, and the trees seem to drop their leaves overnight. The dead leaves scatter across the pavement when the wind kicks up, and life keeps going on. They salt and burn a couple of beasties, knowing that they’ll probably be the last of the year, and track down a siren on the Upper East Side. 

Halloween rolls around. For once, nothing horrible happens. It’s pretty much a first, but then again, pretty much every day is Halloween for them. 

The next two issues of the comic come out and Charlie calls Dean just to express her utter glee that, for once, she got the girl. Anna is less amused that she decided to sleep with Dean Winchester in _any_ universe. 

Dean dreams a lot. He knows Sam does, too. He dreams about being haunted, about zombies on Halloween, and, finally, about Anna. Evidently Chuck isn’t quite on the same timeline as the real other world. Dean isn’t even sure what plane of existence Chuck is on anymore though, so he figures that’s kind of to be expected. 

He wakes up with Cas in bed with him more mornings than not. He’s on speed dial, he pops in periodically to watch movies with Sam and Dean, and Dean even finds himself voluntarily going to a Perdition show. Granted, this one is at Death by Audio, which is radically more his scene than freaking Webster Hall. 

“You should come to a recording session,” Balthazar says after the show, when he and Dean are waiting for Anna to bring the van around, because there are way too many humans wandering around for them to just angel mojo all their gear away. 

“Why?” Dean mumbles around his cigarette, looking at Balthazar out of the corner of his eye. 

“Girlfriends are allowed to stop by,” Balthazar says, grinning, and Dean sighs, rolling his eyes. 

“Yeah, not so much,” Dean says, and tips his head back to exhale. 

“Careful, I think he might actually like you,” Balthazar says. “You should hear how his writing’s changed.”

“Sorry, writing?”

“Who do you think writes the songs? Certainly not Hester or Inais. There’s a reason Inais plays the bass.”

“Cas writes the songs?”

“Lyrics. I compose. Have you really not been paying attention at all?”

Dean ducks his chin into his coat and frowns out at the world at large. 

“Changed how?” He finally asks. 

“Ah,” Balthazar says, smirking. “Think less word of God and more… falling.”

“Falling?”

“Our little Cassie is having _doubts_.” 

Dean gets the feeling that Balthazar isn’t referring to things like Cas suddenly rethinking his scarf obsession. He had wondered, after Cas had ended the set with a song he’d said was new. It was raw, and darker, and _awesome_. He rubs at the back of his neck and stares at the cigarette in his hand, the end burning bright in the breeze that’s kicked up. 

Dean’s not sure what he’s going to do with himself if he somehow seduces an angel into falling. That’s mega double damning, he’s pretty sure. Like, screw the whole 40 years on the rack thing, he’ll probably end up in Hell with a parking spot and a congratulatory party -- _thanks for corrupting an angel!_

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Balthazar says, rolling his eyes. 

“Hey, no mind reading, jackass,” Dean growls. 

“You don’t get all the credit for this one,” Balthazar says. “No matter how much of a pretty face you are. Cas already fell once -- he’s well aware of his own free will. He’s always been a bit… un-angelic.” 

The side door behind them swings open, revealing Hester, Inais, Cas, and a lot of gear. 

“Speak of the devil,” Balthazar says.

“And he shall fucking appear,” Dean mutters. Balthazar just raises his eyebrows at him. 

\---

He gets to work early on Monday morning, not surprised to see that Benny’s already there. Benny doesn’t do a whole lot of sleeping. 

“Hey, Benny,” Dean says, batting at the tire of one of the bikes hung from the ceiling. “Not to get really girly and gross here, but you love Andrea, right?”

“I do,” Benny says, looking at him curiously. “This is about your angel, isn’t it?”

“No,” Dean says quickly, a knee-jerk reaction. “Ok, possibly.” 

“You don’t go to shows for just anyone,” Benny says. “Lisa’s pretty much the only person you’ll voluntarily go see.”

“That’s a bad example, we broke up. Messily.” 

“You’re still good friends.” 

Dean leans against the counter, crossing his arms and staring out the front windows. The world is going on around them, same as always. Day in, day out, the rest of New York goes about their business and doesn’t have to worry about monsters or celestial beings. 

“God, I feel like I need a shower,” Dean mutters. 

“One day you’ll figure out how to talk about emotions without breaking out in hives, buddy.”

“Ha, yeah right. That’ll be the day.” 

\---

Sam meets him for coffee at lunch, already starting to go stir-crazy on the latest issue. 

“Chuck’s in this one,” Sam says. He’d managed to grab a table with overstuffed chairs, and he’s sprawled in one, insanely long limbs going every which way. Dean’s got his foot pressed up against Sam’s ankle, anchoring them together. 

“Chuck wrote himself into the comic book?” Dean asks, incredulous. “ _Breakfast of Champions_ much.”

“Yeah, evidently the comic versions of us track him down because, in that universe, he writes books about us.”

“Shit, way to be totally voyeuristic in every universe.”

“It’s making my head hurt, just a little bit. Also raising questions about where _our_ prophet is, if the other universe has a Chuck, and he’s also writing about that world.”

“Dude, that is some serious prophet shortchanging.”

“Exactly.”

“Why do other us get two but we get none?”

Sam just shrugs before taking a long drink of coffee. Between the over-stuffed chair and the caffeine he looks like he’s relaxing. 

“You know, Jess said something interesting the other day,” Sam says, and Dean knows that Sam’s going for faked nonchalance. On anyone else, it would work perfectly. On Dean? Not so much. 

“I’m not going to like this,” Dean says. 

“You and Cas would make a cute couple.”

“I don’t like this.” Dean slumps a bit more into his own chair. 

“It’s true,” Sam says. 

“You sure you don’t want him? I know he sleeps with you some nights.” That doesn’t mean much -- in their family sharing a bed has very little to do with dating or sex and just a lot to do with showing affection. 

“I’ve got Jess,” Sam says, with a little shrug. That’s the thing with Sam -- it’s always so simple, easy. Everything he says is what he means to say, even if it’s a lie, and he knows what he wants. Must be nice to be Sam. “And besides, dude raised you out of Hell.”

“Not actual me,” Dean points out. 

“Hey, there’s bleed through,” Sam says. “I ended up with Jess in both universes, didn’t I? You guys are bonded no matter what universe you’re in.”

“Ugh, gag me,” Dean groans. 

In what is probably a minor miracle, his phone chooses that moment to ring. 

“Yo, Charizard,” he says when he answers it. 

“ _Hey. So, I think I’ve got a case for you guys,_ ” Charlie says. 

“Lay it on me,” Dean says, and he mouths _Charlie’s got a case_ when Sam looks at him questioningly. 

“ _You ever heard of anything that can mimic voices? Evidently half of marketing has been getting calls from dead family members, and no one can trace the calls. Which is super weird._ ”

“Oh, rock on, sounds awesome.” Dean grins.

“ _You are way too happy about this,_ ” Charlie mutters. 

\---

They ever rotating pile of shit on the dining table goes from art supplies to a couple of books, copious print outs, and the the app with their dad’s journal pulled up on Sam’s tablet. 

“Found it,” Sam says, dumping a book on top of the one Dean’s reading. “Crocotta. Evidently they’ve gotten with the 21st century and moved from the woods to digital communication.”

“So how do we kill it?” Dean asks, skimming the page. “Sever the spinal column. That’s easy enough.” 

“When is our job ever easy?” Sam points out. 

“Eh, occasionally,” Dean says, slapping the book shut and standing up. “Hope springs eternal and all that.” 

They load up and head for the Subway, Dean thankful that they can do this at night. During the day more and more stations are going by the NYPD-random-bag-check wayside, and somehow Dean doesn’t think they’d take kindly to opening a bag and finding it full of pointy, stabby, and shooty things. 

The train is mostly empty, and Dean sprawls out, taking up more space than strictly necessary while Sam leans on a pole with his shoulder, hands in his pockets. It’s a quiet ride, the weirdly bright lights of the L reflecting just a bit too much off of the curved seats and polished metal. 

Charlie meets them in the lobby, looking slightly harried. 

“You know, in a weird way, it’s kind of nice knowing you guys,” Charlie says when they’re in the elevator. 

“In a weird way?” Dean asks, looking unimpressed. 

“You know, like in a monster killing way,” Charlie says. When both of them stare at her she sighs. “Ok fine, you’re cool otherwise as well.”

“Hell yeah we are,” Dean says, smirking, and Sam elbows him. 

It turns out the fucking monster can unhinge its jaw. And mimic their mom. Luckily Sam shuts it up with a well placed machete. 

“Fuck everything,” Dean says as Sam helps him up. “Nice swing, though.”

They both look down at where Sam had taken the thing’s head off. It’s going to be a bitch to clean up - there’s blood _everywhere_. 

“I am going to have to scrub the hell out of the security tapes,” Charlie mutters. 

“I thought you said you looped them?” Dean hisses. 

“I did!” Charlie says. “But, you know. Google.”

“I cannot believe I ever thought this sounded awesome,” Dean mutters. “We need back-up.”

One text later Cas is waiting in the hall for them armed with Starbucks and a promise to angel mojo away the dead body in the next room. 

“Oh my god, dude, I love you,” Dean says, and is too busy inhaling his latte to notice that both Sam and Cas give him weird looks. 

\---

Dean wakes up on Christmas Eve morning from another dream -- a nightmare, if he’s being honest -- and stares at the ceiling. Cas is sprawled half on top of him, and Dean knows he’s not asleep because he’s never really asleep. The only way he sleeps is if he ingests enough caffeine to kill a lesser being and then crashes. 

“Alastair?” Cas’ voice is almost impossibly low in the dark of the room. 

“Who else?” Dean mutters. For about a week now Alastair has been worming his way into his head. Dean knew it was coming, but that doesn’t make it any better. The worst parts didn’t even make it into the comic -- Alastair flaying Dean alive, memories like chains of smoke. They come through in flashes, like the other Dean is reliving them every time he stares Alastair down. 

Cas presses a small kiss over Dean’s shoulder, the unmarked one, and Dean sucks in a deep breath, realizing what he’d half expected to be there. The handprint. 

_Not your life_ , he reminds himself. 

“How long are these going to go on?” Dean asks. 

“I’m not sure,” Cas says. “But I’d guess that it’s tied to the apocalypse, so when that’s over, they should fade.” 

“Awesome,” Dean says dryly. 

“You’re strong enough to get through this,” Cas tells him, and presses his hand to Dean’s shoulder. “And they will end.”

Dean doesn’t put a lot of thought into it when he decides to move. He lets his body move the way it wants to, and he rolls over and hefts himself up so that he can loom over Cas. Cas stares back up at him, defiant, chin tipped up, and Dean kisses him. 

They’ve never done this. Traded little glancing kisses, sure, but this? This is new. 

And Dean instantly loves it. Cas arches up against him like he’s starved for it, breathing Dean in and digging his fingers into Dean’s shoulder. It almost hurts, Cas’ strength behind it, but not quite, and Dean loves the burn of it. 

“Fuck,” Dean breathes when they separate. “What the hell have we been doing for months?” 

“Not this,” Cas growls, sounding honestly put out, and surges back in, biting at Dean’s mouth. Dean breathes him in, heat spreading across his skin as he kisses down Cas’ cheek, dragging his teeth over the curve of his jaw. 

This is about when Sam decides to bang on Dean’s door. 

“Yo, Dean, up!” Sam calls. “We’ve got to be at Bobby’s for lunch.”

“Not now, cockblock!” Dean hollers right back, breathless as all hell. 

“Oh my god, are you deflowering an angel on _Christmas Eve?_ ” 

“Shut the fuck up!”

“You two are quite a pair,” Cas murmurs, breathing hard. When Dean looks down at him he’s thumbing at his lips, like he’s trying to rub the sensation of Dean’s mouth into his, trap it below his skin and memorize it. 

The image stays seared into his brain all the way to Harrison, even with the stereo turned up loud and Sam keeping up a running bitchfest about seeing dad. 

\---

John looks another five years more road weary, the same way he does every year. He looks pleased that the Impala is still in one piece, though -- it’s not hard, it only gets pulled out of the garage they rent every couple of months -- and comments that they’re looking healthy. 

Sam looks downright shocked at the lack of comments about anything else. Dean’s wondering if it’s just finally wrung out of him, all of the fighting and the pushing and the orders. It’s been a lot of long years on the road. 

“Still working at that bike shop?” John asks later, when he and Dean are cleaning up in the kitchen and Bobby’s dragged Sam off to show him a new (very old) book he’d come across. 

“Yessir,” Dean says, staring at the glass he’s working on drying. 

“And, uh -- Lisa?”

Dean frowns and sets the glass down before tossing the dishrag over his shoulder and looking his dad in the face. 

“We broke up. Almost a year ago,” he says. 

“Sorry to hear that, I liked her,” John says. 

“I do too,” Dean says, shrugging. “We’re still friends.”

“That’s good,” John says. “Anyone else on the horizon?”

Dean laughs, because, wow, how to phrase that one? _Well, dad, this vampire and I mess around sometimes and I was making out with an angel a couple of hours ago. They’re both guys, fyi._

He’s not sure he’d make it out of the kitchen alive. 

“No one you’d approve of,” he says finally, and John raises his eyebrows. 

“Just what I always wanted for my boy,” John sighs, and Dean just shrugs. 

“I’m ok with it,” Dean says, and John doesn’t reply to that, just lets it sit. 

Dean goes back to drying dishes, and he’s almost done when John looks at him again, and there’s something open in his face that Dean’s not sure he’s ever seen before. 

“You don’t have to hide from me, kiddo,” he says. Dean swallows hard, nodding. 

“His name’s Cas,” Dean says after a beat.

“Cas?” John asks, and Dean loves in that moment that the part of that sentence that he’s got a problem with is Cas’ name. “What the hell kind of a name is Cas?”

“Trust me,” Dean says, laughing. “It’s way better than his full name.” 

John doesn’t look convinced. 

\---

They spend the night at Bobby’s, not necessarily because they’re the kind of people who exchange gifts, but because some weird moral compass dictates that they’re supposed to spend Christmas with family. 

Dean sits with Sam on the trunk of the car in the early morning, watching the sun rise. Neither of them had slept well, because without Cas and Jess serving as barriers their dreams had crashed together. Dean’s dealing with the feeling of a knife in his hands as he’d flayed Alastair alive, and Sam’s trying to forget the knowledge that he’d ripped the life right out of his body. 

“Merry Christmas, I guess,” Dean says, and they clink the bottles that they shouldn’t be drinking this early together.

“Yeah,” Sam says, taking a long drink and then chasing a drip down the neck of the bottle. The first strands of sunlight are filtering through the trees and catching the edges of his hair, messy and fallen across his face, and Dean puts an arm around his shoulders. Sam leans into him, closing his eyes and letting out a long breath. 

Bobby has gifts for them, which makes Dean just feel guilty. 

“Hey,” Bobby says. “I think I speak for both myself and your dad when I tell you that just having you two around and alive for another year is gift enough. So shut up with the guilt crap and open your gifts.” 

It turns out to be socks and a couple of vinyls. Dean is so all about that, and he bear hugs Bobby, laughing when Bobby hugs back just as tight. 

John takes Sam aside later, and Dean braces for yelling from upstairs, but it never comes. Instead John comes down a couple of minutes later with a camera in his hands. Dean recognizes it instantly, even though he hasn’t seen it in what feels like half a lifetime. It’s his dad’s old Nikon F, beat and battered but still working just fine. 

“I thought you might want it,” John says. “I found it going through a storage unit back over the summer, and I know you used it a few times as a kid.”

Dean had been attached to this thing for a whole year. He’d originally picked it up to impress a girl, thinking it made him look artsy or some shit, but then he’d just found that he really liked taking photos, loved the heavy snap of the shutter and the solid feel of the advance lever under his thumb. 

He can’t remember now why he stopped using it, but it doesn’t seem like an important detail to worry about remembering. 

He turns it over it in his hands, running his thumb across the engraving on the bottom -- _J WINCHESTER ECHO 2/1._

“Yeah,” Dean says, throat suddenly tight. “Thanks, dad.” 

John thumps him on the back and Dean knows they’re ok. 

Dean lets Sam drive back, choosing instead to fiddle with the camera. He’d managed to find a roll of film in a spare drawer at Bobby’s, and he finds that loading the camera is like a second sense, muscle memory that never really left. He can do it without looking. 

He wastes half the roll taking pictures of the sun setting as they get slips of it through the buildings in Manhattan and then whole swaths over the bridge. The one he instantly knows is going to be good though is a picture of Sam, a soft smile on his lips and the colors of the setting sun playing across his skin, glinting in his eyes. 

“What’d he give you?” Dean asks when they’re stopped at Union and Grand, waiting for the light. 

“In my bag,” Sam says, and Dean digs it out of the back, rifling through it. 

It’s a book, older than anything Dean’s seen in a long time. It’s gorgeously illustrated, delicate drawings done in incredible colors and some of them even embossed with gold leaf. 

“Bestiary,” Dean says, running a hand down the spine just to feel the aging vellum under his palm. 

“Yeah, Old World. French, probably 17th century. Dad wasn’t sure beyond that.” 

Dean knows that, despite the dreams, despite everything, it’s one of the better Christmases they’ve had in a while. 

\---

Perdition gets their recording contract right on time. Not that Dean is particularly shocked, considering he’s pretty sure there’s some celestial influence going on. He’s not sure that they need the help though, considering how many people have been showing up to their gigs. They’re getting noticed. 

Now that he and Cas are getting up to all sorts of stuff behind locked doors (and, in one memorable occasion, on the dining table, when Sam was not around) he figures that he should just give into Balthazar’s texts and go watch them recording. 

He didn’t realize that this would include fighting his way through Times Square in a snowstorm. 

The Subway is packed in that horrible, damp way it always is when the weather turns sour, and he glares at people from under the edge of his hat as he stalks through the station. He can feel the snow melting into his hair, though the material of his beanie. 

The snow swirling down is causing significant traffic problems, and he weaves through halted taxis, footfalls muffled in the snow and bag bumping his hip on every step. The lights are overwhelming, everywhere and anywhere, and somehow not even the snow can quiet silence Times Square. 

He shakes the snow off of him like a dog the minute he gets in the door, leaving a puddle in the narrow front hall before hoofing it up three flights of stairs. 

The studio is all exposed everything, in that brick and ductwork kind of hip way (Dean knows he shouldn’t be judging, they’ve got an exposed brick wall at the apartment, but whatever).

When he asks a girl hovering around the front desk where Perdition is, she points him down the hall to a studio. Anna and another guy he doesn’t recognize are in the control room, sitting behind the largest assembly of buttons, knobs, and sliders that Dean has ever seen. 

“This is… a lot,” Dean says, slipping inside. Anna looks up from her phone, smiling at him. 

“Not your usual speed?” She asks. 

“Not really,” Dean says, tugging his coat and hat off and leaving them hanging on the rack in the corner. He sits down in one of the seriously nice office chairs, spinning back and forth a bit. 

“This is Gabriel, by the way,” Anna say, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. The guy next to her smirks at Dean. 

“Hey, Deano,” he says, his voice somehow both sharp and drawly at the same time. 

“Awesome, more angels,” Dean sighs. 

“Trickster,” he corrects. 

“That’s even worse,” Dean says, narrowing his eyes. 

“No fighting in the studio, boys,” Anna says, giving them both pointed looks. 

“ _Anna, are you good to go?_ ” Balthazar’s voice issues out of the speakers. When Dean leans forward in his chair to look through the low window behind the instrument panel he can see the band in the studio on the other side of the glass. Cas has his back to them, and it’s giving Dean an awesome view of his shoulders -- and the thick black lines of ink on them -- under the thin material of his t-shirt. He’s got a heavy pair of headphones on and is, as far as Dean can tell, tuning his guitar. 

“Yep, we’re good in here,” Anna says, leaning forward to talk into a mic. “Cas, you done tuning?”

“I am,” Cas’ voice sounds strange over the speakers. 

He turns around and Dean ducks back out of sight, slouching down in the chair and putting his feet up in the last, unoccupied chair. 

“Alright, going in one, two, three --” Anna and Gabriel are manipulating things on the board, and Anna counts off four and five on her fingers, lips moving but silent. 

The song starts all at once, instrumentals like a wall of sound for ten bars until Cas starts singing. Cas’ voice has always been rough, always been haunting, always been a bit on the deep side, sounding like a lifetime of whiskey and cigarettes, but there’s something else under it now. It sounds like power -- pure energy. 

Dean hasn’t heard this one before, and it’s more upbeat than what he’s been hearing lately when Cas will sing bits and pieces of songs for him. It’s not particularly happy, but it’s less broody. There’s something bright under the sound, something new. Dean likes it immediately -- he might have a new favorite song of theirs. 

He can’t help it, he has to see. He sits up straight, staring through the window. Cas has got his eyes closed, and while he’s not exactly moving freely -- Cas is kind of habitually stiff -- there’s still a softness to the set of his shoulders as he sings, his whole upper body rounded around his guitar, and Dean can see him keeping the beat in the small movements of his body.

Dean gets up before he’s fully realized what he’s doing, going to his bag and getting the camera. Anna gives him a strange look, but doesn’t stop him when he starts taking pictures. 

The band past Anna and Gabriel’s shoulders. Anna’s hands on the sliders. Gabriel’s sideways, knowing look. Hester and Balthazar stacked in one shot. Inais’ grey patterned sneakers. Cas’ fingers pressed against strings. He feels the music around him like someone’s dropped him into an ocean of sound, contained in these two rooms, and he finds himself taking pictures in time with the beat. 

The last photo, as the song is ending just as suddenly as it had started, is Cas looking up, his eyes opening, lips parted to draw in breath. There’s something raw on his face, and when he meets Dean’s eyes his own are dark, drunk on sound. He offers Dean one of his half smiles, mouth quirking up at the corner, and Dean captures that too. The shutter is suddenly impossibly loud in the quiet. 

“Hi, Dean,” Cas says into his mic, still with that dark grin, and his voice sounds like waves breaking on rocks. 

\---

Dean ends up cooling his heels in an office at the back of the studio, waiting for everyone to pack up. It’s a cool space -- leather couch under a slanting, wide window. It’d make an awesome apartment (if it wasn’t in Midtown).

He sinks into the couch, leaning his head back to watch as the snow comes down out of a gunmetal grey sky, sticking to the glass for a moment before rolling down it, warmed by the temperature on the inside of the window. 

The new song is definitely different. Granted, pretty much every track he’s heard from Perdition has been different than the last, but this one had felt like a final evolution. Anna had said that the song was a good example of the sound they were going for on the album, and Dean can hear it. It was also totally and utterly devoid of anything religious. Cas has been gradually stripping the word of God stuff out of the songs for a month or two, and now it seems to be fully gone, replaced with something that might be good old humanity. Dean likes it. 

He’s still rolling the song around in his head when his phone rings, and he fishes it out of his pocket to find that it’s Sam. 

“ _Where are you?_ ” Sam sounds breathless, and it gets Dean to sit up pretty fast. 

“Midtown, why?”

“ _We have a prophet._ ”

“What?”

“ _Kevin. Kevin’s our prophet. He had a vision, not even fucking with you._ ”

“The intern?”

“ _Yeah. Can we come meet you?_ ”

“Um, yeah. I’m at MSR, I’ll text you the address.” 

Dean shoots him a text with his mind racing. Sure, the whole no prophet thing was weird, but it was also ok because Dean’s started to associate Chuck with the apocalypse. He might as well be one of the four horsemen at this point. Kevin he’s still not so sure on, but the whole prophet thing is still… unsettling. 

The door opens and he looks up to find Cas, and man, Dean is never going to get tired of seeing him in a t-shirt and jeans. 

He’s not expecting it when Cas blinks out of existence for a second to suddenly reappear between Dean’s knees, kneeling up on the couch, hands cupping Dean’s jaw. 

“Something’s bothering you,” Cas says. 

“Yeah,” Dean says. “I can’t exactly explain at the moment though. But figure we’ll both find out in like 25 minutes, half an hour. Depending on how far away Sam is.” 

Cas nods at that, just staring at Dean. 

“How’d you like the song?” He asks finally. 

“Not exactly very word of God-y,” Dean says. 

“Which I don’t care about,” Cas says. 

“Taking the band in a different direction?” Dean asks, smirking

“Not exactly,” Cas says, and he’s so, so close, and all Dean can see are stretches of skin and the blue of his eyes. “God did instruct his creations to love, above all else.” 

“Shit, lookit you with the pick-up lines,” Dean says, laughing and darting in to press a kiss to the corner of Cas’ mouth. “All grown up and dropping lines.” 

Cas just kisses him in response. All of the dark heat that Dean had seen in his eyes is in the kiss, hot and open mouthed, and Dean gives back just as good as he gets. He lets his hands roam, rucking Cas’ shirt up and splaying his fingers over his hips, pulling them as close together as possible. 

They probably shouldn’t be doing this in someone’s office, but fuck it. Dean doesn’t go by the ‘there’s a time and a place’ rule so much as ‘as long as they’re alone, it’s the time and place.’ 

Which is of course why the minute he gets Cas’ shirt off, Cas working at his belt, the door opens. 

They both freeze, Dean praying to any deity who will listen that it’s Anna or Balthazar or someone similar. 

Cas’ wrecked and rumbled “Sam” is an actual godsend. 

Cas shifts around so that Dean can see where Sam’s standing in the doorway with Kevin hovering behind him. 

“Whoa,” Kevin says. Sam just looks slightly pained. 

“I’m not sure I ever needed to see that,” Sam says, sounding pinched. 

“This is definitely _not_ in Chuck’s version,” Kevin says. 

Cas is looking at Kevin with an intensity Dean knows is usually reserved for serious situations, so when Cas grabs for his shirt Dean hands it to him to put on.

“You’re Kevin Tran,” Cas says. “The prophet.”

“Uh, yeah,” Kevin says, and slips under Sam’s arm to come into the room. Sam closes the door with a little sigh, and Dean gets the impression that this isn’t the first time that Kevin’s made fun of Sam’s height without saying a word. 

“So, we do have our own prophet,” Dean says, still breathing a little heavy as Cas settles down next to him. 

“We do,” Sam says, sitting in one of the seriously comfortable desk chairs Dean was availing himself of earlier. Dean smirks when Sam tests it out the exact same way Dean had -- spinning back and forth slightly. 

“Chuck has no idea why there are two prophets for the other universe and only me for this one,” Kevin says. “But I’m it.”

“So, what’d you see?” Dean asks. “And _please_ tell me it wasn’t something to do with the apocalypse. Or any of us dying. For the love of God.”

“The apocalypse already happened in this universe,” Cas reminds him. Dean totally knows that, but it’s still chewing at him. 

“It’s about a, uh, tablet, I think? Crowley’s going to kidnap me and get me to translate it,” Kevin says. 

“I’m sorry -- _Crowley’s real?_ ” Dean demands. 

“Unfortunately,” Sam mutters. 

“Son of a bitch,” Dean says. 

“Yeah, I’m not incredibly excited about it either,” Kevin says. “But, you guys are here, right? You kinda know how to kick demon ass.”

“No kinda about it,” Dean says. “We’ll keep you safe.”

\---

When they get home there’s a cardboard box waiting for them in the middle of the apartment. It’s got nothing on it to suggest what it is, but Cas says it doesn’t feel evil, so they open it up. 

The very first thing on top is a knife. They both recognize it immediately.

“Holy shit, is that--” Dean starts. 

“Yeah. It’s Ruby’s,” Sam breathes. He picks it up carefully, running a finger down the flat of the blade, over the symbols. “It seems real.”

“What the hell else is in this box?” Dean asks, digging into it. He comes up with a corner of bristol board with coordinates on it, and a bundle of papers. 

“Those are Chuck’s scripts,” Kevin says, grabbing them and leafing through them. “Yeah, for the last two issues.” 

“Where are these coordinates to?” Dean asks, holding it up. Sam grabs it, typing them into his phone and then frowning. 

“Middle of nowhere,” Sam says, handing the phone over. It’s a dot in nowhere, Kansas. 

“I’ll be back,” Cas says, vanishing with his usual flutter. 

“What happens in those?” Dean asks, pointing at the scripts. 

“Well, you guys avert the apocalypse,” Kevin says. “But, um, Sam ends up saying yes to Lucifer and basically throws himself into Hell. And Dean mopes to Lisa.” 

“ _What,_ ” Dean says. 

“Hey, I didn’t write it,” Kevin says. 

Cas snaps back, looking grave. There’s snow in his hair. 

“It’s a bunker of some kind,” Cas says. He looks slightly windblown. 

“Crowley?” Sam suggests. “He pulled something similar in the comic.”

“Not necessarily,” Cas says. “It felt warded, but I didn’t sense anything inside. And also, Chuck’s gone.”

“What do you mean gone?” Dean asks. 

“He’s vanished. There’s a very nice woman with a cat who lives in his apartment now. I kind of startled her,” Cas says. “She had never heard of Chuck.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dean says, dragging his hand across his face. 

“Well, you’ve got me instead,” Kevin says. “And it looks like I’m going to need a new internship anyway.”

“Dude, you’re a prophet, I don’t think you need to intern,” Dean says. 

“It’s for credit,” Kevin says, slightly exasperated. 

“So, what do we do?” Sam says. “Wait around until Kevin gets kidnapped? I don’t think we can keep him under house arrest.” 

“Yeah, I’d prefer to not be house arrested or kidnapped,” Kevin says. 

“What if we go check out the place in Kansas?” Dean asks. “Assuming it’s Crowley, we’re not exactly going into this unarmed and unaware. And if it’s not, we should still check it out. Chuck must have left us the coordinates for a reason.” 

This is met by silence. Sam stares down at the knife, turning it over in his hand, and Kevin watches him. 

“Ok,” Kevin is the one who breaks the silence. “I vote we go with that plan.”

“I like you,” Dean grins. 

\---

They load up the Impala, putting things back into their places in the trunk. They fit like nothing’s happened, like they haven’t been kept in a couple of storage boxes in the corner of the kitchen for years. When they straighten up to stare down at the restocked trunk, something feels _right_. 

(The camera is a new edition, tucked away in the glove box, but somehow that feels like it fits, too.)

“I think I might have missed this,” Dean says. 

“What, hunting out of the car?” Sam asks incredulously.

“Yeah,” Dean says, his voice bright as he slams the trunk and gives the car a little pat.

They lock up, rolling the heavy door of the apartment in place with a final _thunk_. Sam had been at Jess’ the night before, Dean assumes rather enthusiastically saying goodbye, and so he heads down to the car first, while Dean takes the steps slower, texting Charlie and Benny. 

_be back soon. call xtra cell if u cant get this one. love both u fuckers/dont do anything i wouldnt._

He’s realizes he’s thinking about Cas when the angel in question flutters into being in front of him, a step lower. It makes Dean even taller, and he grins down at him. 

“I was just about to call for you, Feathers,” Dean says. 

“I want to come with you,” Cas says. 

“Cas, you seriously don’t have to. We’re not going to be gone that long. Hopefully. Don’t you have an album to record?” 

“I’m an angel,” Cas says with a shrug, like he’s pointing out the obvious. “It won’t take me very long to get from Kansas to New York.” 

“You really want to come with us?” Dean asks. 

“I can be of help,” Cas says. 

“You don’t need to,” Dean says, and he leans forward so that he can tip Cas’ head back with a finger under his chin, kissing him. It’s soft, Cas’ lips dry under his. 

“Then let me rephrase that: I _am_ coming with you, Dean,” Cas says when they pull apart. There is fire in his eyes. 

“Alright,” Dean says, grinning. “I guess you are.” 

Sam doesn’t seem particularly surprised when Cas slips into the back seat, just offers him a small smile. 

“Ok, gang,” Dean says, starting up the car and loving the feeling of her purring around them. “Let’s go pick up a prophet and get the hell out of here.” 

\---

This story starts many times. It starts when he meets Castiel, it starts when he kisses him, it starts a hundred times, each scattered kiss, lips on lips. It starts in a recording studio, between a microphone and a camera lens. It starts on a snowy day in late January. 

And it starts again when they speed across the bridge, prophet added to the back seat, and Dean adjust the rearview mirror, smiling at Cas and loving it when Cas smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> It certainly doesn't have to be the song, but I had [We Don’t Sleep Tonight - Young Empires](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4guixV6upMw) on repeat for the scene where they're recording.


End file.
